Posts from August 2010

August 27, 2010

Sometimes I marvel at the human capacity for self-delusion. In a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, storied theater director Harold Prince spoke about his recent production of Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. And some of Prince's comments really got me scratching my head. Most of them in fact.

As you may know, Paradise Found was by all accounts an unmitigated disaster. Granted I didn't see it, but we're not talking mixed reviews here, but outright hostile pans. The fabulous West End Whingers were unrestrained in their disdain. "We're still a wee bit shell-shocked, to be honest..." The delightful SarahB at Adventures in the Endless Pursuit of Entertainment wondered at the end whether it was just an "elaborate joke."

Well, according to Prince, the problems with the production stemmed from the fact that the theater and the cast were too small:

The material is great. But it should be big...Now I have to do it somewhere where there's a large chorus. We had wonderful actors...but everyone was doubling and tripling...That's not what the material demands...I'm meeting with the authors the week after next, and we’re going to aim for it.

Again, I didn't see the show, but none of the reviews that I read said that the venue or the cast size were at fault. No, most of them seemed to focus on the material itself, which one reviewer called "[A] pastiche Arabian Nights fable of unbelievable coarseness and vulgarity."

I know that some creators refuse to read reviews, but I can't imagine that Prince was completely insulated from the critical drubbing that Paradise Found received. But I was simply floored by his contention that the show just needed to be bigger. No, Hal. Great shows work in small paces and with small casts. John Doyle's recent productions of your Sweeney Todd and Company certainly come to mind. The idea that all you really need to do is throw some more money at Paradise Found for the project to work is ludicrous.

Of course, this is probably an academic discussion, because Prince is highly unlikely to find investors clueless enough to open their purse strings for a full-scale production of Paradise Found. Yes, this is the man who made millions on Phantom of the Opera. But he's also the man who gave us Lovemusik. And Roza. And Grind. And A Doll's Life. And Bounce.

Just prior to closing, South Pacific aired live on PBS stations under the auspices of Live From Lincoln Center. This gave me a chance to evaluate the production, and the piece itself, afresh. Regular readers will recall that I consider South Pacific the most overrated musical of all time, and that the revival did nothing to change that view. (Read my review.) After watching the PBS broadcast, I still feel that way, but I will admit that I found more to appreciate in the show this time around.

For one, the show was making more dramatic sense this time. I've never quite understood how Nellie can go from singing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" to "(I'm in Love With) A Wonderful Guy" in a matter of mere minutes. But this time, mostly through the effectiveness of Kelli O'Hara's nuanced performance as Nellie, the sequence of emotions seemed more plausible.

I've complained before about the lack of extended musical sequences in South Pacific. The show has always felt too choppy, too stop-and-sing, especially coming from the two men who rendered plodding show structure obsolete. "Honey Bun" is simply an embarrassment, not because of the song itself, which is fine for what it is. But it represents one of the only examples I can think of when Hammerstein and Rodgers included a song for a song's sake. It serves no dramatic or thematic purpose: it's just there for entertainment. Again, Rodgers and Hammerstein were the men who obviated that kind of song. (Oh, and that reprise. When the soldiers and the nurses are walking in slow motion singing "Honey Bun." WTF?)

But this time I was captivated by the finale of act 1, which features a smart series of mini-reprises ("Wonderful Guy," "Twin Soliloquies," "Cockeyed Optimist," "Wash That Man," and "Some Enchanted Evening"), which effectively summarizes how we've arrived at this point in the show, and underscores the emotional subtext of the relationship between Nellie and Emile.

The best sequence remains the "Carefully Taught" scene, followed by Emile's moving intermezzo ("I was cheated before, and I'm cheated again, by a mean little world of mean little men..."), which then leads into the stunning "This Nearly Was Mine." This is truly thrilling theater, and for me it hints at what the show could have been. Paulo Szot's delivery here was masterful. I was particularly moved by his pianissimo delivery during the second verse. Szot seems to have gained a considerable (and distracting) amount of weight since the show opened, but the emotional impact of his singing remains undiminished.

But, on the whole, South Pacific remains hampered by labored plot machinations and emotion-sapping exposition. The pathos of the show disappears when the book stops to address the dull, obligatory military storyline. Every time those frickin' maps descended from the fly space, I audibly groaned. When we're watching Nellie and Emile, the show works. When they're not on stage, it falls flat.

When I saw South Pacific live, it was early in previews, and it seemed at that point that Loretta Ables Sayre and Danny Burstein hadn't yet grown into their respective roles as Bloody Mary and Luther Billis. I'm happy to report that both seem to have progressed over the course of the run into far richer and more effective performances. Sayre was a lot more layered and engaging, and Burstein brought a lot more of the wonderful individuality and creativity that he's exhibited in previous roles, particularly that of Adolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone. There were a few times that Burstein's performance seemed a bit too close to a Bert Lahr caricature for my tastes, but those moments were thankfully fleeting.

The major hole in the cast for me was Andrew Samonsky as Lieutenant Cable. I found Matthew Morrison bland and forgettable, but Morrison's performance was masterful compared to that of Samonsky, who came off unbearably smug and mannered beyond reason. His gait seemed borrowed from a bad John Wayne impersonator, and he had this annoying mannerism of sniffing and humming in rapid succession when he was trying to be sardonic. On the whole, Samonsky made me sort of glad that...well, let's just say that I found the denouement of the show ironically satisfying.

I recognize that South Pacific fans are legion and ardent, and I certainly wish them well. But after numerous earnest attempts at connecting with the show, which significantly predate the production at hand, I remain unconverted as to most of its supposed charms.

Everything was going fine, until I came across the following sentence:

Carnegie Mellon, Cincinnati Conservatory, Texas State, DePaul, Pace University, Boston Conservatory, the American Conservatory Theater, Juilliard are all considered conservatories or conservatory-style programs in that their training is rigorous and intense with little or no coursework in general education and electives. [Emphasis mine]

I nearly did a spit take into my Darjeeling.

Now, I'm very happy to report that, as of this fall, I will be teaching full-time at the BoCo. (Thank you.) I've been on faculty there since 2003, but only recently gathered together enough teaching credits to be considered a full-timer. And it just so happens that every single class I teach is either in general education or an elective. [Emphasis mine.]

What's more, there's an entire department of amazingly qualified, incredibly dedicated, and mindblowingly overeducated professionals who do exactly the same thing. Needless to say, I forwarded the article with all due haste to my esteemed colleagues, who were all equally incensed at such casual calumny, and we decided to formulate a sternly worded response. I've submitted the the letter as a comment on the Times Web site, but also as a letter to the editor. But I figured I'd post it here as well as sort of an open letter to Ms. Dennard, in the interest of promulgating the truth about what goes into a conservatory education.

Of course, I can't speak for Julliard, CCM, CMU, or any of the other schools mentioned above. But I do know first-hand that the education available to the students at BoCo goes far beyond their career-specific professional development. Far beyond.

Dear Editor:

Those of us in the Liberal Arts Department at the Boston Conservatory would strongly dispute certain points that Mary Anna Dennard makes in a recent article on the New York Times Web site (Arts Beat, The Culture at Large, “Answers to Your Questions About College Theater Programs,” August 11, 2010). In particular, we take significant issue with the contention that our program offers "little or no coursework in general education and electives." The Boston Conservatory strives to challenge its students both artistically and intellectually. In fact, we believe those goals to be one and the same.

Our BFA in musical theater includes 41 credits in general education out of a total of 132. That amounts to 31% of students’ total credit hours over their four years here at the Conservatory. Within our liberal arts program, students explore multidisciplinary areas of cultural history. In their freshman year, they begin with American studies and composition. In sophomore year, they start with the Greek classics and move on through the European tradition. In junior and senior years, students delve into modernism and postmodernism.

What’s more, each of these core courses eschews the standard broad survey method in favor of a depth-of-field view with a specific thematic focus. For example, students study the Greeks through contemporary research into the evolutionary biology of aggression and cooperation. They view European culture through the lens of modern-day debates on the definition of happiness, as well as the dual themes of utopia and terror. A very popular recent addition to our core curriculum is a course on the neuroscience of music, which engages students with up-to-the-minute research on how brain function affects arts performance.

Electives include Italian Neo-Realist Film studies; Colonialism and Post-colonialism; Creative Writing Workshops in Poetry and Fiction; Into the Wild: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Concept of Wildness; Arts Criticism; A Cultural History of the Body and Gesture, etc.

Even more electives are available to Conservatory students through the Boston Pro Arts Consortium, through which students may cross-register at neighboring schools, such as The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Berklee School of Music, Boston Architectural College, and Emerson College.

We invite Ms. Dennard to explore our full curriculum on our Web site. (www.bostonconservatory.edu) We’re confident that she will discover that, although as a conservatory we are primarily interested in turning out world-class performers, we also pride ourselves in offering our students a full range of academic rigor that addresses their full potential as people as well.

The producers of the Broadway production of Fela recently announced that the show will close on January 2nd, 2011. At that point, the show will have run 463 regular performances and 34 previews.

That's certainly a decent run, and nothing to be ashamed of, but at about 14 months, it's probably not enough of a run to turn a profit. Granted, Wicked went into the black in that amount of time, but Wicked was running at full-price capacity. Fela has been running at a thoroughly respectable capacity of 85%, but at an average ticket of about $75.

So, all those A-list producers (Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Jay-Z) most likely did have a positive effect on the show's box office, but not enough to push things into the profitability column.

But before the show folds up, the producers hope to go out with a diva-fueled bang. The fabulous Patti LaBelle will replace Tony winner Lillias White as Funmilayo, Fela's beloved mother, beginning September 14th and through the end of the show's Broadway run. LaBelle was originally only supposed to step in for White during her vacation, but LaBelle has since extended her run with the show.

Now, before you go booking your tickets expecting to see Patti LaBelle take over the stage of the Eugene O'Neill Theater, be forewarned: Funmilayo is a relatively minor role in the show. In fact, nearly every role other than the title role is minor. The story of Fela is told and sung almost entirely from Fela's point of view, which was one of the main problems I had with the show when I first saw at the now-moribund 37 Arts. (Read my review of the Off Broadway run.) I was pleased to see that the Broadway version actually gave some speaking lines to someone besides Fela, but I still found the storytelling rather inert. (Read my review of the Broadway production.)

To be sure, Funmilayo is an important role in the show, and she does sing on five of the show's 26 numbers. And a few of those songs are pivotal to the story. Just don't go expecting to see a Patti LaBelle concert. 'Sall I'm sayin'.

But, like the eponymous Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the show based upon his life will not fade quietly into the dark. The show is set to transfer to London, where it will enjoy a run at the storied National Theater, during which the show will be broadcast live to movie theaters around the world. One hopes that a DVD release will soon follow.

Yeah, I know. "Gee, Chris, I thought you didn't like the show." Actually, I genuinely appreciated what Fela was trying to do, even if I occasionally found fault with the execution. I fully support all efforts to stretch the musical theater form, and Fela's is definitely a story worth telling and retelling. Bill T. Jones has created some of his most vibrant and energetic choreography. And Sahr Ngaujah is unforgettable as Fela: dynamic, sexy, and passionate. So, I'll certainly be in a theater near me for the live cinecast. And I might even catch Fela again before it closes to see how La LaBelle fares on the Broadway stage.

August 16, 2010

When Douglas Perry saw the Broadway revival of Chicagoin the late 1990s, he became fascinated with the factual events that inspired the show. He expected to be able to find a book about the real-life "killer dillers," but found that there wasn't one. An accomplished journalist, Perry sought to rectify the situation by producing a tome of his own.

Much of the general public ascribed such heinous acts by women to a loosening of moral values, and an overindulgence in the cabaret lifestyle and bootleg liquor. Or perhaps it was more of a general social malaise. "Something about Chicago was destroying the feminine temperament," writes Perry, not from his own point of view, but from the perspective of the general 1920s Chicago zeitgeist.

Enter Maurine Watkins, an aspiring journalist, playwright, and moralist seeking to acquire some first-hand experience as a crime reporter. Watkins became one of the few female crime reporters with the venerable Chicago Tribune. The Tribune considered itself the "hanging paper," in contrast to the Hearst publications, which sought to wrench as much human melodrama as possible from any given tragedy -- whether or not the details were actually true -- in the shameless pursuit of newsstand sales.

Shortly after Watkins arrived in Chicago, two sensational murderesses hit the real-life Cook County jail: Belva Gaertner (think "Velma"), a stylish former cabaret singer and three-time divorcee, accused of gunning down her married lover. And Beulah Annan (think "Roxie"), the beautiful car-mechanic's wife, who allegedly shot her lover and danced over his dying body to the strains of a jazz record playing over and over on her Victrola. What follows is a scandalous tale of sexism, racism, xenophobia, yellow journalism, and miscarriages of justices.

In The Girls of Murder City, Perry's descriptions of various murder cases and the attendant media circus are heavily detailed and thoroughly compelling. I did have to wonder, however, how he got as specific as he did with the precise descriptions of what the various characters were doing and feeling. Perry provides an extensive bibliography, and one can assume that his accounts are taken from those sources, but sometimes the level of specificity strained credulity. How, for instance, could he know that Beulah Annan, when attending church services, would be "leaning her cheek against her mother's elbow during services"? Perry's bibliography lists no source for this reference, so perhaps it's meant to be fanciful projection?

In any case, Perry certainly knows how to effectively set the scene. His descriptions of the rampant mob mentality during the funeral of one of the minor murderesses was alternately heartbreaking and terrifying. Perry also demonstrates a knack for building suspense during the trials of Gaertner and Annan, wringing compelling drama out of the court proceedings. Perry does devote a bit too much attention to the Leopold and Loeb case, which admittedly occurred during the time period, but would seem to be outside the scope of Perry's thesis.

Based on her experiences covering the Gaertner and Annan trials, a disgusted and outraged Maurine Watkins decided to turn these travesties into the play Chicago, which ran on Broadway during the 1926-27 season, and later toured the country. The play was made into a film twice, once in 1927 under the title "Chicago," and again in 1942, this time called "Roxie Hart." Watkins was unhappy with both versions, and to her dying day refused to entertain offers of a musical treatment.

When Watkins died in the early '70s, Bob Fosse approached her estate about creating a musical with John Kander and Fred Ebb, and you probably know the story from there. Fans of the musical Chicago will notice in Perry's book elements that have survived intact from the news reports and court documents, all the way to Watkins' play and Fosse's and Ebb's libretto. This includes actual lyrics, such as "We both reached for the gun," as well as plot elements, including Roxie's fake pregnancy.

One of the reasons the musical Chicago struck a nerve upon its 1996 revival was that the show's focus took on a new relevance alongside the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, a miscarriage of justice in a very different vein, which nonetheless made household names out of Marcia Clark, Kato Kaelin, Judge Ito, Johnnie Cochran, and Mark Fuhrman. I'm frankly appalled that even now, after 15 years, I can still recall those names. That's the insidious power of the media, and Perry's book puts a fascinating perspective on how another media circus evokes its own particular place and time.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received a complimentary review copy of The Girls of Murder City .

Regular readers will recall my strong reaction to Next to Normal in both its Off-Broadway (my review) and Broadway (my review) incarnations. I won't rehash my reservations here, but I will say that there was something about the production with Mazzie and Danieley in the leads that made the apparent message of the show more ambiguous, which for me is a good thing. Life is ambiguous, and art is more satisfying when it reflects that lack of certainty.

Perhaps it was the comparative subtlety of the performances, particularly that of Marin Mazzie, that made the message less blunt. (Alice Ripley is many things, but she's certainly not subtle.) But seeing Next to Normal with an almost entirely new cast provided the opportunity to evaluate the piece afresh.

The show started off a bit garbled and indistinct. Quite a few of the lines and lyrics were lost to poor diction and a general lack of focus, on everyone's part. But things quickly improved in that respect. Mazzie wasn't quite getting the laughs that Ripley got from the role, but Mazzie's Diana was more human and believable, and more heartbreaking as a result. Plus, Mazzie has a killer belt, and she doesn't share Ripley's pitch problems. Personally, I didn't witness any intonation issues with Ripley either time I saw her in the show, but that is a frequent criticism that I've heard leveled against her.

Again, Mazzie's Diana is a lot more realistic, and considerably less batshit, than Ripley's. Don't get me wrong: Ripley was terrific in the role. But Mazzie is effective in an entirely different way. Her moment in act 1 with the music box ("I Dreamed a Dance") was profoundly moving. And the look she gave her husband Dan at the end of act 1 as she was being wheeled off to her first ECT treatment was so incredibly haunting that I haven't been able to erase it from my mind. I may never forget the sheer terror on her face. It was one of the most stunning moments I've ever experienced in the theater.

As for Jason Danieley, he may need a bit more time to warm up to the role of Dan, Diana's husband. Danieley seemed a bit too casual in performance, playing at a level that was not commensurate with the stakes of the proceedings. He was never less than serviceable, but he didn't really start making an emotional impact until the climax of the show, at which point he acquitted himself nicely. Plus, whereas Mazzie's vocals meshed well with the pop/rock idiom of Tom Kitt's score, Danieley's legit style was a bit out of place.

Taking Aaron Tveit's place in the pivotal role of Gabe is Kyle Dean Massey, who also played the role while Tveit was in Seattle for the out-of-town tryout for Catch Me if You Can. Massey seems to have been cast based on how much he looks and sounds like Tveit, but he's certainly talented in his own right, and brings a number of individual touches to his portrayal. Meghann Fahey as Natalie was considerably less grating than Jennifer Damiano, who's off to star in the debacle-in-progress that is Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Damiano irritated me to no end, although in retrospect in may have been that Damiano was more fully evincing the annoying female-teenager self-centered-ness and sarcasm. Whatever, Fahey was a lot less likely to set my teeth on edge.

So, Next to Normal definitely seems to be growing on me, particularly under the auspices of the new Broadway cast. After my strong negative reaction to the show in its initial run, it's a bit of surprise. Who knew I'd become such a fan, if only a reluctant one?

August 04, 2010

One of the benefits of seeing a lot of live theater is recognizing familiar faces on stage and familiar names in the Playbills. But there's also great joy in the unfamiliar: new names and faces that surprise and delight.

Cummings' deft touches include not only an immersive theatrical experience (not unlike his production of The Boys in the Band, which literally took place in a Chelsea apartment building), but also the ingenious use of various forms of lighting, from fluorescent to klieg.

Alexander's sonorous score not only effectively sets the time and place, but also powerfully evokes the characters' emotional states, two hallmarks of successful theater music. Mathias' peripatetic scenarios share a common element: moments of realization for the characters involved, perhaps to make the connection between geographic and internal exploration. What makes the show so affecting is how Mathias and Alexander take situations that are potentially fraught with sentimentality and create varying states of tender verisimilitude. The freshness of the dialog and the palpable humanity of the characters somehow override the potential for cliche.

As for familiar faces, the cast of See Rock City features some of the most appealing and talented actors the theater has to offer, each playing two separate characters. In one segment, the show's three female cast members -- Donna Lynn Champlin (Sweeney Todd), Sally Wilfert (Make Me a Song), and Mamie Parris (Ragtime) -- play sisters who gather on an Alaskan cruise to sprinkle their father's ashes along the glaciers. From such a potentially twee setup comes one of the most humorous and engaging segments in the show, thanks in no small part to these three formidable performers.

The men are certainly no less strong. In perhaps the show's most effective sequence, Stanley Bahorek (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and Bryce Ryness (Hair) portray two prep school boys who play hooky and take a trip out to Coney Island. This lively scene is full of both testosterone-fueled avoidance and exploratory approach, showcasing Bahorek's vulnerability and Ryness's bravado to full effect. Somewhat underutilized are Jonathan Hammond (The Boys in the Band) and Ryan Hilliard. But, hey, it would be hard to write a musical in which six performers received equal treatment and opportunity.

See Rock City plays at the Duke through August 8th. I'm hoping that the show has some kind of afterlife, if only in the form of a cast recording. It's a strong show that deserves to been seen and savored, and promises great things from the talented cast and creative crew.

[UPDATE: See Rock City & Other Destinations has now been extended until August 14th. So you have 8 more chances to catch this charming and heartfelt musical during its current run.]

August 02, 2010

Why? Because Bernadette Peters is now proving eight times a week that you didn't deserve it. It's not as though you embarrassed yourself in A Little Night Music. Far from it. Your Desiree was never less than professional, but never more than merely competent. Let's be honest: the only reason you got that award is that the Tony voters wanted to congratulate themselves on being able to attract A-list Hollywood talent to Broadway, and to encourage other stars to make the trek east.

But now, visitors to the Walter Kerr Theater in New York can see how a real star of the stage comports herself in one of the best female roles in the musical theater canon.

To be sure, Bernadette is not without her mannerisms and eccentricities, which are on full display here. Peters seems hell-bent on wringing every possible laugh from Hugh Wheeler's urbane and literate script, whether through exaggerated line readings or shameless mugging, even when she's not the immediate focus of the scene. But the marvel here is that it works, and swimmingly so.

When I saw Zeta-Jones play the role (read my review), there was a definite sense of nervousness about her, despite her striking beauty and killer smile. And that anxiety was contagious. But with Bernadette, I just sat back and enjoyed being in the hands of a seasoned stage performer. It reminded me of seeing Maggie Smith in Lettice and Lovage or Three Tall Women. In both cases, I knew she was hamming up a storm, but I eagerly and ravenously devoured every last scrap of pork.

And when it comes to hearing Bernadette Peters interpret Stephen Sondheim's ravishing score, well, there's just no comparison. Zeta-Jones was on pitch (mostly) throughout the show, but her delivery of "Glamorous Life" was irritatingly labored, compared to Bernadette's joyous playfulness. And "Send in the Clowns" in Peters' hands is a tour de force. Suddenly the mannerisms die away, the defenses are down, and we're left with a masterful performer laying bare a raw and palpable sense of loss and regret. It's nothing less than stunning.

And then there's the formidable Elaine Stritch. With all due respect to the wondrous Angela Lansbury, Stritch has a much firmer grasp on the humor inherent in the role of Madame Armfeldt. Of course, Elaine is showing her age much more than Angela was. Elaine's pacing is extraordinarily slow, giving the impression that accessing every single line and lyric is a chore. The show is about 15 minutes longer than it was with CZJ and Angela, and most of that extra time comes from Stritch's continual grasping and shameless backphrasing, particularly on "Liaisons."

But, again, it works. Stritch is every bit the pro that Bernadette is, and she knows her way with a caustic one-liner. In fact, she can make almost any line into a caustic one-liner, whether the authors intended it or not.

When I first heard that Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch would be taking over for CZJ and Angela Lansbury, I was skeptical. I wasn't sure that either was right for her respective role. But after seeing the show, I can confidently announce that both women suit their parts admirably, bringing a spark of vitality to a production that was sorely lacking in same prior to their accession. These consummate professionals breathe bountiful life into a formerly moribund property. It's an amazing sight to witness.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received complimentary press tickets to this performance of A Little Night Music.